Update Report No. 4: Security Council Working Methods
Update Report in Word Format • PDF Format
Following several months of work by the Council’s Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Matters, led by the Japanese Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, the Security Council approved today a Note by the President summing up various aspects of Council’s practices and procedures.
The 14-page Note recapitulates many of the previous developments in Council working methods that took place over the past several years. Some of them have been referred to in earlier Notes (S/2006/78) but some have not been formally adopted or even articulated.
In addition and of greater significance, today’s Note offers some innovations. For example, the Note clarifies and amends the terminology applied to the different types of meetings in Council practice, including who is allowed to participate in each type, and when non-members are allowed to speak. It also lists several measures aimed at making Council’s work more transparent and easier for non-members to have direct or indirect impact on, such as earlier provision of advance information about meetings, including emergency meetings and meetings of Council subsidiary bodies. The rules for the operation of the Arria Formula meetings are also clarified.
The Note requests the Secretariat to take steps aimed at a better flow of documentation out of the Council. It also recommends that the President of the Security Council publish the tentative forecast of work of the Council (an informal document prepared each month by the Secretariat) on the website of the Security Council as soon as it is available to members of the Council.
The Note does not address in detail the Council working methods relating to peacekeeping issues and consultations with troop contributing countries (on the basis that this is being reviewed separately by the Council Working Group on Peacekeeping) [see our Update No. 2 of 2006] as well as sanctions committees. (It is possible that the review of Council mandates [see our May and June Monthly Forecast] will separately produce some changes related to subsidiary bodies in general.)
The Note was adopted on the eve of a scheduled for 20 July plenary meeting of the General Assembly under Agenda items 117, “Question of Equitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council” and 120, “Follow-up to the Outcome of the Millennium Summit.” In March, under item 120 of the agenda, Costa Rica, Jordan, Liechtenstein, Singapore and Switzerland circulated a draft resolution (A/60/L.49) titled “Improving the working methods of the Security Council.” The draft, referred to as the “S5 Draft” has urged the Council to adapt its working methods in order to become more transparent and allow for a better input into its work from the membership at large and for better interaction of the Council with the General Assembly. While the Note makes no mention of the S5 initiative, it touches upon several of the issues contained in the 19-point annex to the S5 draft.
